Prior art paging systems are used to send electronic notices, or pages, to subscribers informing them that they have been called by other persons. Typical paging systems include a wireless messaging system with a paging terminal and one or more paging stations. The paging terminal is connected to the publicly switched telephone network and is configured to receive incoming calls from persons who wish to contact subscribers of the system. In response to receiving a call, the paging terminal creates a page for the subscriber, which is forwarded to the paging stations where the page is transmitted to the subscribers' pagers. When the pagers receive pages directed to them, they alert their respective subscribers of the incoming pages. Usually these alerts are in the form of a audio buzzing or a silent vibration, and are commonly accompanied by a displayed message on an alphanumeric display.
Older paging systems employed one-way pagers, which could only receive pages. In order for subscribers to acknowledge receipt of the pages or to convey other information, they would contact the senders through other systems, such as conventional telephones. Modern paging systems often employ two-way pagers which can not only receive pages, but may also acknowledge receipt of pages as well as transmit other information back to the paging stations.
A recent embodiment of modern paging systems is the voice paging system, in which a recorded voice message forms part of the page.
Most voice paging systems operate by allowing a caller to communicate a voice message to a recipient using a combination of digital "land-line" or satellite networking and analog radio frequency transmissions from the caller to the recipient's voice pager.
In a typical system, a caller dials a recipient's assigned phone number and records a message on a voice paging terminal (VPT). This message is automatically forwarded from the VPT to a voice paging message router (VPMR). The VPMR determines which voice paging base station (VPBS) is in broadcast range of the recipient and proceeds to forward the message to that VPBS, which then transmits the voice message to the recipient's voice pager over an RF communication path known as a forward channel.
In conventional two-way messaging systems, a VPBS may also receive communications from voice pagers over an RF communication path known as the reverse channel. Modern two-way paging systems employ voice pagers that can both receive pages as well as acknowledge their receipt. The reverse channel may also be used to transmit other information such as responses to electronic mail messages.